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It was announced back in 2013 that the Picturehouse on Lothian Road, the main venue for rock and pop gigs in central Edinburgh, had been bought by big, bland, corporate pub-chain J.D. Wetherspoon and would be transformed into another of Wetherspoon’s big, bland, corporate pubs. At the time, I lamented on this blog about how Edinburgh’s powers-that-be seemed hellbent on destroying any spaces where music fans could congregate and hear music played in its proper form, i.e. live.

I compared the situation in 2013 with how it’d been in the 1990s, when I’d lived in Edinburgh for a wee while: when you could go to gigs at The Venue at 17 Calton Road, “which started trading as The Jailhouse in the early 1980s and spent the next quarter-century hosting bands big and small” but which closed its doors in the mid-noughties; the Cas Rock on West Port, “now a bland glass building that houses, among other things, a Sainsbury supermarket”; and punk-loving pub the Tap O’Lauriston just up the road from the Cas Rock on Lauriston Place, “which was demolished to make way for a Novotel.”

Alas, the slaughter of Edinburgh’s gigging spots has shown no sign of abating since Wetherspoon banished live music from the Picturehouse. The news broke at the end of last year that the nightclub, cabaret and music venue Electric Circus on Market Street is due to be taken over by the adjacent Fruitmarket Gallery, which plans to use the premises to “greatly improve and expand” its exhibition area and boost its “café, library and bookshop.” It’s depressing to see culture in one of its most egalitarian, communal and spontaneous forms – being in the same room as some musicians giving it their all and sharing the experience with a like-minded crowd – being displaced like this in favour of culture in a far more elitist, moneyed and rarefied form. (If you’ve ever had a nosey around the Fruitmarket Gallery’s existing bookshop and taken in the topics and prices of the books on sale, you’ll know what I mean. It’s provides art for the few rather than the many, which is the opposite of the service provided by a good live-music place.)

Also due to close – sometime this month in fact – is the Citrus Club on Grindlay Street, whose description on Google Reviews as a “no frills, black-walled dance club and live music venue with an emphasis on indie and retro sounds” chimes with my fond memories of it.

Now comes the news that the owners of Studio 24 on Calton Road, which functioned as a nightclub offering ‘eclectic’ (i.e. non-mainstream) music and occasional gigs, have decided to sell up following a long war of attrition waged by local residents complaining about noise levels and the city council imposing expensive soundproofing regulations. In a statement, they said: “We’re gutted we’ve had to come to this decision, but with years of investing thousands upon thousands in soundproofing and legal fees in order to stay open, alongside complaining neighbours and harsh council-enforced sound restrictions, we feel these problems won’t leave us, with more complaints recently received and no real support from licensing standards officers, therefore threatening our ability to stay open.”

What’s particularly annoying is the fact that Studio 24, while admittedly not contained in the most gorgeous building in Edinburgh, was on the site before the soulless glass-and-concrete apartment buildings that’ve sprouted up around it. The inhabitants of these complain about the noise from the Studio, which begs the question: if you want to live in brand new yuppie apartment with zero noise levels, why move into one that’s been built on a street next to a long-established and much-loved music club? Shouldn’t you move into one instead that’s been built on a street next to a crematorium?

Given that Calton Road would probably be noisy even if Studio 24 wasn’t there – thanks to the trains entering and exiting nearby Waverley Station – I wonder if the noise complaints were a smokescreen for the real gripe, which was that the venue was luring so-called undesirables into the neighbourhood, lowering its tone and lowering potential property prices.

I’m depressed to see Studio 24 go because for a decade from the late 1990s, when I lived in Edinburgh, to the late noughties, when I’d still visit the city for a night out, I’d go there if it was hosting a heavy-metal or goth night. I have to confess, though, that when I last went to a Studio 24 heavy-metal night, the guy at the desk clocked my time-worn features and asked politely if I didn’t want to check out the 1970s rock-nostalgia night being held upstairs instead.

Anyway, Edinburgh is now in the seriously embarrassing position of being the capital city of Scotland yet hardly having a decent music venue to its name. It’s ridiculous that a city that makes such a hoo-ha about being the world’s cultural capital when the Festival and Fringe and a zillion well-heeled tourists set up camp there every August is, for the rest of the year, as musically bereft and barren as one of Simon Cowell’s armpits.

So music lovers of Edinburgh, heed my advice. Your once-proud city has fallen – into the hands of a bunch of suits, nimbies and money-chasing ghouls whose iPods are no doubt crammed with James Blunt and Coldplay songs and whose idea of musical edginess is probably to tuck into a salad in the Hard Rock Café while a paunchy, balding cover band play Hotel California in the corner. There’s only one thing you can do now. Pack your bags. And move to Glasgow.

But before you start packing, sign this petition to save Studio 24 on the off-chance it might work.